While in Port Hardy last November, my brother in law took my wife and I for a short boat tour and fishing trip. I asked to see a salmon farm so he stopped at the first one outside of Hardy Bay. We drifted about 100 m away and did some jigging for bottom fish ... I was the only angler and in about 45 minutes caught 4 species of fish, including a small ling cod.According to him fishing for species like that is always more consistent near farms. Kinda like ducks and geese attracted to farmland in the Fraser Valley.Where do you hunt your ducks Chris?

Yes, it does, but it is not. One would expect as much from a river like the Fraser which, while it has improved greatly in the last few decades, still drains half the province's industrial and agricultural waste. This is sediment from coastal BC. It should not look like that. If the sites were as well flushed as the farmers like aquapaloosa suggest, then it should not look much different than any other part of the coastal sea floor. We know, however, that this is not the case. Despite the "close monitor[ing] and regulat[ing]," they are still having a clear negative impact on the substrate. This may be good fertilizer for your garden, but studies have shown that this is not good for the biodiversity of the local ecosystem. I know you are going to say we need to accept that, as an industrial operation, fish farms are going to damage the environment just as any industrial agricultural operation on land does, but I just do not see that way. I am tired of being told I need to sell my children's future healthy environment for jobs and economic benefits today.

I am tired of being told I need to sell my children's future healthy environment for jobs and economic benefits today.

I hear you there, but to suggest that an area about the size of stanly park being effected by salmon farms will have an effect on your childrens future is a bit much. Get on google earth and look to see the size of stanly park compared to all the ocean floor out there. It is really quite insignificant. Most of the google earth is now in high definition and the farms can be seen. Take a look.

I hear you there, but to suggest that an area about the size of stanly park being effected by salmon farms will have an effect on your childrens future is a bit much. Get on google earth and look to see the size of stanly park compared to all the ocean floor out there. It is really quite insignificant. Most of the google earth is now in high definition and the farms can be seen. Take a look.

We used to say the same thing about dumping garbage in the ocean...it is so big that we cannot possibly do any harm. We used to think the same about the atmosphere...it is so big we cannot possibly have an effect on it. What is stopping the expansion of the farms? If the "antis" as you like to call us, all go away and stop bothering your employers, then what is to stop the expansion of the salmon farms into every cove on the BC coast? It is free enterprise, right? If Mainstream can farm here, why can I not open a farm in the next inlet? or across the inlet? There is no harm in that right? Either they are not harming the environment and therefore can expand all over the coast, or they are harming the environment and therefore should be removed (although you may argue that they cannot be removed for economic reasons). If you are arguing that there is no harm in farming Atlantic salmon in open net pens on the BC coast, then you must be saying that they should be able to expand all over the coast, so their foot print is inevitably going to be larger than it is today.

I actually do not support expansion at this point in time. What is commonly mistaken as expansion is the relocation of sites to better locations to improve reduce the footprint.

But that is because you have to admit that they are harming the environment and so their locations have to be carefully chosen to minimize the amount of damage they do. I am still waiting for a good reason why we need the farms, when we could be spending our efforts to protect and support the wild stocks. With all we now know about the environment and our impacts on it, why are we still trapped in this exploitation model where the environment continues to be a resource to be exploited as cheaply and efficiently as possible, for the good of the economy, as opposed to a resource that needs to be protected, conserved, and managed for the benefit of future generations. It is too easy for governments, and the people they serve, to claim that doing the right thing today is too harmful to the current generation (read stockholders), so we need to continue on a destructive course that will ensure our grandchildren inherit a world significantly worse off than we did.

Sandman, I believe aquapaloosa was referring to Dr. Tony Farrell’s recent on line seminar regarding Fraser River sockeye and pink salmon/sea lice studies and aquaculture issues.Farrell said the space taken up by all of BC salmon farms is roughly the size of Stanley Park.Now, put that in perspective considering the size of BC’s coast. Absolutely and totally insignificant in the big picture..Future salmon farming will governed like any other commercial industry; expansion will of course happen when wild stocks are no longer a viable option as a commodity and the market will guide that.

We used to say the same thing about dumping garbage in the ocean...it is so big that we cannot possibly do any harm. We used to think the same about the atmosphere...it is so big we cannot possibly have an effect on it. What is stopping the expansion of the farms? If the "antis" as you like to call us, all go away and stop bothering your employers, then what is to stop the expansion of the salmon farms into every cove on the BC coast? It is free enterprise, right? If Mainstream can farm here, why can I not open a farm in the next inlet? or across the inlet? There is no harm in that right? Either they are not harming the environment and therefore can expand all over the coast, or they are harming the environment and therefore should be removed (although you may argue that they cannot be removed for economic reasons). If you are arguing that there is no harm in farming Atlantic salmon in open net pens on the BC coast, then you must be saying that they should be able to expand all over the coast, so their foot print is inevitably going to be larger than it is today.

Fish farming isn't going to expand everywhere just because you say it is and no-one is saying they should be able to in spite of your suggestion to the contrary. You're attempting to set up a fallacious argument; developing erroneous premises that suit your personal, unscientific conclusions. In other words, it's nothing more than meaningless rhetoric in support of your attempts to paint salmon farming as evil.

If farms are going to expand, they will only do so in areas that meet very specific biological, oceanographic, environmental and legal criteria. They will only do so if there is a sufficiently undersupplied market to absorb the production and they will only do so after following a fairly rigorous approval process.

Fish farming isn't going to expand everywhere just because you say it is and no-one is saying they should be able to in spite of your suggestion to the contrary. You're attempting to set up a fallacious argument; developing erroneous premises that suit your personal, unscientific conclusions. In other words, it's nothing more than meaningless rhetoric in support of your attempts to paint salmon farming as evil.

If farms are going to expand, they will only do so in areas that meet very specific biological, oceanographic, environmental and legal criteria. They will only do so if there is a sufficiently undersupplied market to absorb the production and they will only do so after following a fairly rigorous approval process.

It is not a fallacious argument to say that if there is an established industry already in BC and another player wanted into the market, then the industry would expand. Competition laws demand it. The fish farm industry has already expanded, even under a moratorium on new farms, by expanding capacity of existing operations. You have stated repeatedly that fish farms are necessary to meet a high world demand for salmon that cannot be met by wild salmon, therefore, it stands to reason that this "demand" will continue to rise with population a drive expansion. It stand to reason that if allowed to expand, the fish farm industry would. The very fact that there needs to be "very specific biological, oceanographic, environmental and legal criteria" supports my argument that they have a negative effect of the natural ecosystems.

It is not a fallacious argument to say that if there is an established industry already in BC and another player wanted into the market, then the industry would expand. Competition laws demand it. The fish farm industry has already expanded, even under a moratorium on new farms, by expanding capacity of existing operations. You have stated repeatedly that fish farms are necessary to meet a high world demand for salmon that cannot be met by wild salmon, therefore, it stands to reason that this "demand" will continue to rise with population a drive expansion. It stand to reason that if allowed to expand, the fish farm industry would. The very fact that there needs to be "very specific biological, oceanographic, environmental and legal criteria" supports my argument that they have a negative effect of the natural ecosystems.

Moving the goal posts yet again? This isn't at all the claim you made about expansion that elicited my response to you.

If another player wanted in the market all those siting criteria would still apply and so would the requirement for unsupplied market demand to absorb the production and the requirement to go through the rigorous approval process to establish new sites. It may work for your argument to ignore world supply conditions but it isn't accurate or honest. Those specific criteria are to ensure the health of the farm stocks and the shared use of coastal waters, not to minimize damage to the environment.

I would also be concerned about those that bypass regulations or any assessment on purpose. In this day and age, this is done quite often by average Joe Public. They get the old Bobcat in there doing work without any approval at all.